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MAJURO, Marshall Islands (Marianas Variety, Jan. 4) - Two Hawaiian outrigger canoes are preparing to leave this weekend on the first leg of an epic voyage from Hawaii to Micronesia.

The double hull canoe “Maisu,” launched late last month on the Big Island of Hawai΄i, and its more famous sister canoe, the "Hokule’a," which made the first modern day voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976, will make the trip using only traditional star and wave navigation techniques - a once a lost art form in Hawai΄i.

The Maisu was built by the Hawai΄i-based Polynesian Voyaging Society as a gift to honor Mau Piailug, a renowned master navigator from the tiny atoll of Satawal in western Micronesia, who is credited with giving birth to a new generation of Hawaiian navigators and canoe builders.

"It took one man (Piailug) to get the Hokule’a to Tahiti in 1976 and spark pride in Hawai΄i and throughout Polynesia,” said the Voyaging Society’s Chadd Paishon, who was...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (The National, Jan. 4) - The First Legislative Counsel Hudson Ramatlap has denied that he wrote a note that appeared on a purported gazettal notice, part of which the Post-Courier reproduced on its front page yesterday.

The newspaper has claimed this as proof that the Government had attempted to disband the Moti Inquiry.

[PIR editor’s note: Julian Moti is an Australian lawyer who has been sought by Australian authorities in connection with alleged child sex offenses. He was appointed Attorney General in the Solomon Islands in September but went on the run shortly after his arrival in the Solomons. Moti fled first to Papua New Guinea, where he was protected by the Solomons embassy in Port Moresby, until he was spirited back to Honiara, allegedly with the help of the PNG military.]

Mr. Ramatlap told The National yesterday that the writing was not his and neither was the signature under the scribbled note....

RAROTONGA, Cook Islands (Cook Islands News, Jan. 4) - Cook Islands whale research director Nan Hauser received what she says was "an amazing gift" on Christmas day in the form of a satellite signal from a tagged Cook Islands humpback whale.

Three months ago Hauser and her team of whale researchers tagged several whales in the Cook Islands with satellite tags including a mother whale named Jamieson with her calf.

She was tagged on 10 September and her tag transmitted for 15 days before it stopped.

On Christmas Day the tag began transmitting again much to the delight of Hauser.

"Three months later it began beeping, on Christmas Day, showing us her location at approximately 141 west, 46 south which would be about 3,000 kilometers south of the Cook Islands and Tahiti," says Hauser.

"She is on her way to the feeding grounds with her calf."

If Jamieson is heading to the Antarctic feeding ground then it will be the first...

SAIPAN, CNMI (Mariana Variety, Jan. 4) - The Republican White House supports a federal wage hike measure - even if it will also apply to the CNMI, according to visiting U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Insular Affairs David B. Cohen.

"President Bush already announced that he supports a minimum wage of US$7.25 per hour which the Democrats are proposing," Cohen said during yesterday’s press conference. "And given that the CNMI provision is attached to the overall national minimum wage bill, it’s very unlikely for the administration to oppose the bill only on the basis of the CNMI provision."

But Cohen said the extension of federal immigration laws to the islands is likely to be considered a separate issue that will require a separate piece of legislation.

The key sponsor of the wage hike bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, George Miller, D-Calif., also favors the federalization of local immigration law.

PAPEETE, Tahiti (Tahitipresse, Jan. 3) – Burial services were held Wednesday in Noisy-le-Grand, France, for French archaeologist José Garanger, a University of Paris professor, a researcher for the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) and a specialist in Oceania archaeology. He died on Dec. 26 at the age of 80.

Garanger was the first French archaeologist to work in South Pacific islands in a world dominated at the time by Anglo Saxon archaeologists. He introduced French-style excavation methods adapted from those of André Leroi-Gourhan who was Garanger's mentor.Garanger made archaeological discoveries in the New Hebrides, the colonial name for the Melanesian island group governed by the British and French and today known as the nation of Vanuatu. He excavated ancient stone monuments that had a socio-religious vocation, the historical veracity of oral traditions.

Garanger arrived in French Polynesia in 1976. He is remembered for his excavations on Tahiti's...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, Jan. 4) - The process for payment for doctors’ accommodation will be improved, and all outstanding rent debts will be paid by next Friday.

This is one of the assurances given by the officials from Health and Personnel Management departments and sealed in a memorandum of understanding they signed with the National Doctors Association that got the doctors back to work yesterday afternoon. The agreement was signed in the gardens of Port Moresby General Hospital at lunchtime.

Doctors at the Port Moresby General Hospital spent all day on Tuesday in a sit-in protest over three main issues affecting doctors - housing, doctors’ contracts and positions for specialist doctors.

In housing, apart from settling rental housing arrears by the close of business on January 8, the Health Department has agreed to complete necessary measures for outsourcing management of doctors’...

That's how the Hawaii All Stars manhandled American Samoa 28-6 at Veterans Memorial Stadium to even up the Samoa Bowl series 2-2 in front of a jam-packed crowed that included Governor Togiola and his wife, Lt. Governor Ipulasi Sunia and his wife and other dignitaries.

The local team fought for every yard and every inch of the field while the visitors gobbled it up in bunches.

There was the game's Most Valuable Player, 5'8" and 180-pound Gabriel Tuata (Kealakehe High School) turning and spinning and juking and, basically, making some excellent local defenders miss tackles.

When he left the field in came another 5'8" running back, Lene Auelua (St. Louis High School), to take a turn at sidestepping and stutter stepping and high stepping and, well, basically making more...

SUVA, Fiji (Fiji Times, Jan. 5) – New Zealand is skeptical that the handing back of executive power from the military to President Ratu Josefa Iloilo means a step towards democracy.

Duty Minister Ruth Dyson said the proof of the pudding will be in the eating ... "in this case, whether the two are foreshadowing a genuine commitment to the restoration of democratic government and the rule of law as soon as possible".

"Confirmation that executive authority in Fiji rests with the President does not, on its own, satisfy the many international and regional calls for restoration of democracy and fundamental freedoms in Fiji," she said. "New Zealand is concerned too that the President, in accepting back executive authority, endorsed the Commander's actions in taking over the Government. There is no doubt the coup was illegal and unconstitutional."

She said that until concrete progress was made in Fiji, sanctions imposed by New Zealand would stay in place.

Pacific Islands Report is a nonprofit news publication of the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Offered as a free service to readers, PIR provides an edited digest of news, commentary and analysis from across the Pacific Islands region, Monday - Friday.